If it is so important to the left to stop Sarah Palin from running for President, then it is that much more important that she run - and win!

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Monday, June 1, 2009

Remember the flap Governor Sarah Palin had to endure during the election cycle over her wardrobe? Did you ever wonder how such a non-story was turned into a big deal?

Let’s review the facts: Governor Palin was vetted for months as a potential running mate for Senator McCain, however, the decision to choose her came very late in the campaign – almost on the eve on the Republican National Convention.

While Sarah and Todd Palin make a nice living, they are not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination; this is a middle class family. When one considers that Alaska’s climate and culture is a tad different than the lower 48, it makes sense that some new duds, fit for the campaign, and her position in it, were certainly required.

Constructing a wardrobe and assembling a team to prepare a political candidate for the national spotlight is not uncommon, in fact, it is ‘business as usual’ in every campaign, with virtually every politician for national office. The media ignored that fact and focused on Michelle Obama’s frugal clothing expenditures (a public relations stunt that the media endorsed and supported) and, at the same time, needlessly and shamelessly attacked Governor Palin.

This is what happened: The GOP and a man named Jeff Larson, who is a longtime Republican advisor, and was the chief executive of the host committee for the convention, decided the wardrobe was a good idea. It was Jeff Larson who bought and paid for the clothes. Campaign finance laws, of course, dictated that the GOP reimburse Larson for his expenditure, and they did.

What the critics of Governor Palin, who just wouldn’t let this go and sought to portray her as a "shopaholic," missed is the fact that most of the wardrobe purchased was actually sent back almost immediately, because they were the wrong size, indicating the Governor didn’t do the shopping. Most people know what sizes they wear.

But why was this even a story, let alone a 24/7 circus?

Two words, George Soros!

For those who don’t know who George Soros is, think Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the super villain from the James Bond movies, or if you will, a less endearing version of Mike Meyer’s "Dr Evil".

Soros is an Eastern European socialist who made billions of dollars through currency and commodities speculation. He is credited with the serious devaluation of the British pound note back in 1992. He is said to be the man who "broke the Bank of England."In 2002, Soros was convicted of insider trading in France, a felony, and fined $2.3 million dollars.

Recently, Soros was quoted as being very pleased with the current economic situation in America. Could it be that he is speculating on the American dollar?

What does this mean?

Well, politically, George Soros is an extreme leftist. He, of course, is a huge supporter of President Barack Obama.

The way Soros works, in my opinion, is a bit nefarious – at best. Rather than be out front and advocate his socialist policies, Soros funds dozens of far-left front groups; some with innocent enough sounding names, but, based on my research, these groups promote left-leaning schemes, nonetheless.

These groups and foundations support everything from open borders, to the legalization of most drugs, to abortion on demand. George Soros’ funded "programs" also promote the liberal agenda being taught in schools.

Some of Mr. Soros' endeavors include: MoveOn.org, The Open Society Institute, USAction, Center For American Progress, Americans United For Change, and many more, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

CREW is the group who filed the clothes complaint against Governor Palin, and, in conjunction with Soros’ many activist organizations, as well as "friends" in the media, kept the story going well past its normal shelf life.

CREW is a shadowy group. Depending on the source, you will find that CREW was either founded in 2001 by left-wing activists Norm Eisen (an attorney) and Louis Mayberg (a prominent Democrat donor, and co-founder of the Maryland-based mutual fund management firm ProFund Advisors LLC).

CREW was founded by Melanie Sloan, in 2003. Ms. Sloan is listed as the Executive Director on CREW's website. As you see, she references 2003. "CREW was founded in 2003 by Melanie Sloan, a former U.S. Attorney."

Confusing at best.

CREW's "Form 990" IRS filing for 2001 lists Mr. Mayberg as one of its three Founding Directors; the other two are Daniel Berger (a high-profile Democrat donor who in 2004 made a $100,000 contribution to America Coming Together, another Soros-funded entity) and Mark Penn (a fellow at the New Politics Institute, yet another Soros foundation, and a top Democrat strategist and pollster who not only played a key role in Bill Clinton's 1996 presidential campaign, but also served as head of "message and strategy" for Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign)

Although CREW denies any ties to George Soros, they indeed receive funds from the Democracy Alliance, the Tides Foundation, as well as the Open Society Institute – all Soros front groups.

CREW seeks to construe itself as "non-partisan," however, most of their efforts target Republicans.

This group is not exempt from its own ethical quagmires: One issue involves an ethics complaint filed against The Center for Union Facts, an anti-union group, and its sister organization, the Center for Consumer Freedom, which CREW claimed are "front organizations for for-profit industry entities."

The problem is that it appears this effort was funded by the Service Employees International Union; a group with heavy. ties to ACORN and to Soros himself in the form of contributions amounting to $75,000.

Perhaps CREW should take a good look inside its closet before filing unwarranted claims about someone else’s wardrobe.

Back to the issue at hand: like every other resolved ethics complaint filed by the unruly left against Governor Palin, this clothing ethics complaint filed with the FEC by CREW was shot down: the FEC ruled that no laws were broken.

CREW's main purpose seems to be to file ethics complaints against a prominent, high profile target with the primary intention of seeking negative media exposure as opposed to pursuing real issues.

The "target" is marked for attack; CREW gains its destructive publicity, and then moves on to the next target. What is the purpose of this strategy if there is no successful prosecution of claims? CREW knows that the charges will be plastered on the front page of every newspaper and will be the lead story on every news channel, coast to coast, for days or even months. Of course, when the charges are thrown out, that little bit of news gets buried in a tiny blurb, deep in the newspaper, on page A18.

This has most certainly been the strategy used against Governor Palin. Numerous phony, and, sometimes, almost comical "ethics complaints" have been filed against Governor Palin since she has become a national figure and the front runner for the 2012 Republican nomination for President.

The filing of these nonsensical complaints (13 of which have been thrown out), made huge headlines nationwide, and yet little, if any, news coverage has been devoted to their resolutions.

Finally, it’s been established that George Soros is a committed socialist. It is very troubling that such a rich man can use his wealth for such un-American activities; and it is even more troubling to see many Americans either unaware or unconcerned while these anti-American actions take place.

Americans can and should hold public officials accountable for their actions. However, it’s unethical (and an oxymoron) for groups like CREW to use a valid legal procedure to damage careers and harass their political targets with phony ethics charges and feigned outrage.

Is this the America you want to live in?

Do you want an America where a far left socialist has access to the highest offices in the country and the ability to get his anti-American agenda enacted?

Well, sadly, with George Soros, that’s exactly what you have right now.

There are a lot of new terms floating around on Twitter. Some of these are used by Twitter groups, which are fairly new. Twitter itself does not yet have groups, but groups powered by Twitter are available from other providers.

A twibe is a Twitter group. There are two types of Twitter groups that I am aware of: Twitt groups on twittgroups.com and Twibe groups on twibes.com. There may be more, but these are the ones I am familiar with.

Twitt groups and Twibe groups can be set up by anyone who has a Twitter account. Twitt groups are powered by hashtags, such as #tcot, and collect all tweets from all over Twitter that contain a specific hashtag anywhere in the tweet. Twibe groups use hashtags also, but only tweets containing specific hashtag(s) and tweeted by members of the Twibe are posted on a particular Twibe's page.

The Twitt groups show more tweets but can include unwanted tweets. For example, the #palin hashtag pulls in primarily negative tweets about Sarah Palin, whereas the #sarahpalin hashtag pulls in a mixture of positive and negative tweets. To minimize the negative tweets, the Sarah Palin Web Brigade at Twitter's Twitt group uses the #spwbt hashtag to post positive tweets about Governor Palin. Although only member tweets using the associated hashtag(s) are posted on a Twibe group, those same tweets also go to the Twitt groups that use the same specific hashtags.

There are two Twibe groups that I am aware of that support Sarah Palin. One is the Palin Twibe, which uses the hashtags #palin, #sarah, and #conservative. The other is the SarahPalinWebBrigade Twibe, which uses the #spwbt hashtag. Both groups support Sarah Palin. To my knowledge, Governor Palin has not yet set up a Twitt group or a Twibe group.

The #spwbt Twitt group has been moved by Twitter Groups to an AssistSocial group with the same name and using the same tag. The new group can still be accessed through the "View Tweets" link at the old URL (http://www.twittgroups.com/group/spwbt).

Since the last update, our AssistSocial site experienced a database crash, which apparently involved all of the AssistSocial sites. At the time, I was advised that it may be a "while" before they are back up.

So the SPWB Twibe is now our primary Twitter group. Since we have the capability of blocking negative tweets about Sarah and removing trolls from the Twibe, we are now using the hashtags #sarah, #palin, and #spwbt. This change was made so that more members' posts would show up in the message stream of the SPWB Twibe.